Milheglin

[Michael Quinion]

Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

> It surely looks like "milheglin" should be "metheglin" (in the sense
> "mead" or so). The alteration of "met-" to "mil-" has two apparent
> explanations:
>
> (1) this was erroneously transcribed from a handwritten note:
> "metheglin" was written with a short or incomplete cross-bar on the
> "t", so that the "e" appeared dotted (i.e., "i") and the "t" appeared
> uncrossed (i.e., "l") [I think this is more likely although less
> interesting];
>
> (2) the author did some amateur reconstruction based on the notion (of
> a non-scholarly person familiar with Gaelic or something similar) that
> the "met-" in "metheglin" is descended from "mil" = "honey" (in Irish
> or Scots Gaelic).

Either might be possible and, without access to her original MS or
notes, we may never know. I've since had a helpful comment from an
editor at the OED to the effect that the "milheglin" form is unknown
to any of their resources. The intriguing result is that the Royal
Society of Chemistry has, directly or indirectly, perpetuated this
misspelling. At least we know where they're coming from ...

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>